Reopening Ravenswood plant is important: Century CEO

Century Aluminum's president and CEO said Monday that he and his company remain dedicated to reopening the company's Ravenswood smelting plant by the end of the year or early next year.

"We are trying to get this plant reopened. We have made good progress over the last nine to 12 months," Michael A. Bless told Charleston Gazette editors during a visit to the city on Monday.

Century closed its Ravenswood plant on Feb. 15, 2009, laying off 651 workers, after a sharp drop in aluminum prices between October 2008 and April 2009.

If the Jackson County plant reopens, Bless said, it will employ up to 475 workers, who will earn about $80,000 a year in wages and benefits.

In May, Century Aluminum and Appalachian Power were unable to agree on a special rate for selling electric power to Century, another condition for reopening the plant. Century Aluminum officials have said -- and Bless repeated Monday -- that the aluminum market price is too volatile to allow the plant to operate, without some kind of buffer built in to allow Century to pay its power bill when aluminum prices are low.

Some critics worry that giving Century a special deal for its electricity rates would require other consumers to make up the difference during hard times. Bless wants to set up a special fund to pay electric power rates, a fund that would receive make more than it needed when prices are high, but then pay part of the plant's power costs when aluminum prices are low.

Tom Heywood, a Charleston lawyer who represents Century Aluminum, said that earlier this year, state Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow estimated reopening the plant would put $20 million a year into the state treasury.

The reopening would make it possible for the retired workers to collect part of the health benefits promised to them under previous labor contracts.

Century will also take risks. "It will cost $90 million to reopen the plant," Bless said. "But it will be good for our shareholders. We have a vision that aluminum smelting has a bright future in this country."

Aluminum produced in Ravenswood will be used primarily to manufacture automobiles, airplanes and other transportation-related products, Bless said.

Bless said Century "invested tens of millions" at the Century plant during the decade between 2000 and 2010. He also said that the price of a metric ton of aluminum has varied widely recently. For example, it dropped from $3,300 a metric ton in July 2008 to just $1,300 in April 2009. After Century closed the plant in Feburary 2009, prices began to increase. They are about $1,900 per metric ton now.

Today, a special agreement with Appalachian Power about electricity prices would be the "mechanism that enables us to stay in the batter's box" in the future, he said.